In the fall of 1959, a year
after I sent Robert Heinlein my psychology paper on Samuel Renshaw, I
had
another exchange of letters with him. I'd just read his
newspaper
ad headlined "Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?", which he'd
published
the year before, and I was troubled by it.

I
first became aware of the ad's existence
when it was mentioned at a party of SF fans and pros I attended in
Chicago.
I said I hadn't seen it, and Earl Kemp (one of the partners of Advent,
publisher of Damon Knight's In Search of Wonder and
other pioneering
books of science fiction criticism), on whose couch I would be sleeping
that night, said that he would show it to me when we got to his house.

This
ad -- eventually reprinted in Heinlein's
collection Expanded Universe -- was a very hard
sell, replete with
trumpet flourishes and waving flags. The ad called for
continued
nuclear testing as a matter of patriotic opposition to Communist Russia
-- with further bomb tests equated with liberty and the threat posed by
Communism with death.

This
made me highly uneasy. I wasn't
in favor of atmospheric bomb tests. I had doubts that
opposition
to Communism could be sufficient justification for radioactive fallout
in the milk of American and foreign children who had no say in the
matter.
That seemed a denial of liberty to others in the name of preserving
liberty
for oneself.

I
would be even more troubled when I
read a statement in Heinlein's new novel, Starship Troopers.
Here, Heinlein's narrator asserted that radiation is necessary for
positive
mutation and the process of evolution. He told the reader of
a planet
that was a twin of Earth, but "retarded" because it didn't enjoy
Earth's
high level of natural radiation and therefore had an unhealthily low
mutation
rate.

This
was a very tricky assertion, somewhere
between a serious statement, a sly joke, and a trap for the
unwary.
To the extent that at this particular moment, the obvious reading of
this
otherwise gratuitous passage had to be that we could use more atomic
testing,
it was a serious statement. And, if radiation wasn't just a
positive
benefit, but an evolutionary necessity, then Heinlein was taking a dig
at those people foolish enough to oppose nuclear testing who were
really
being done a favor they didn't appreciate by those who knew
better.
Finally, it was a trap set for the unwary reader because Heinlein
actually
said nothing about bomb tests, but only spoke of "natural radiation."

However, in spite of the plausible deniability
that was built into the passage, I had to believe that its intended
message
was further support for setting off more bombs. And that
didn't sit
well with me.

In
the course of the Fifties, I would
have the chance to see John Wayne, my favorite movie star when I was a
kid, playing House Un-American Activities Committee investigator Big
Jim
McClain as he exposed hidden Communists to the light of day.
And,
a few years later, I could see him again pretending to be Genghis
Khan.
But that movie, The Conqueror, would be filmed
downwind of eleven
nuclear tests at Yucca Flats, Nevada, which in time would become
notorious
for their dirtiness. Not only would John Wayne, dedicated
anti-Communist,
die of cancer, but so would the director of the movie and more than
forty
members of the cast and crew. Not to mention a lot of
ordinary American
citizens in western Utah.

Even
though this long-term result hadn't
yet manifested itself, something like it might be foreseen by a reader
of Heinlein stories like "Solution Unsatisfactory" and "The Long
Watch."

The
question I attempted to put to Heinlein
after I read the "Heirs of Patrick Henry" ad was whether invocations of
patriotism were sufficient to justify the actual human costs of setting
off nuclear devices?

Heinlein answered me. He sent me
a list of books and told me that I wasn't informed unless I had read
them.
I found the books at the University of Michigan library, and I did read
them. They were all from dedicated presses somewhere to the
right
of Joseph McCarthy in their antipathy to Communism and the Soviet
Union.

The
one book which sticks in my memory
was a demonstration that while the weapons and military equipment we'd
supplied to the Russians during World War II had been a crucial element
in their ability to turn the tide of the war, they'd never acknowledged
the extent of their indebtedness to us or paid us back.

I
didn't question the accuracy of the
account, but I was put off by its accusatory and self-righteous
tone.
To me, Russian default seemed less a sin that needed to be exposed than
one more loose end left over from World War II, which was no more
significant
than anybody else's failure to pay us what we thought they owed us.

It
was while I was working my way through
Heinlein's list of books that I read Starship Troopers.
And
that would only make me more aware that while the books Heinlein
recommended
might present a case for the existence of a hostile, subversive and
implacable
Red Menace, none of them addressed the issue that I was asking about,
which
wasn't whether Communism should be opposed, but whether or not fallout
was good for people.

I
admired Heinlein as I did no one else,
and I had no desire to argue about Russia with him. So when I
wrote
back to say that I had now read the books he suggested, and to renew my
question, I chose my words very carefully. Even so, it had to
be
apparent that he and I were alarmed by different things.

This
time, it was Mrs. Heinlein who answered
me. She said that Mr. Heinlein was now at work on a novel --
presumably
Stranger
in a Strange Land -- and wouldn't be able to continue our
correspondence.

Early in 1960, I dropped
out of college and volunteered for the draft. I would serve
in the
U.S. Army for a little more than two years, the last thirteen months
stationed
in Korea. Although I was trained to be a preventive medicine
technician,
while I was in Korea I would do more typing for one of the company
detachments
I was in than any actual preventive medicine.

In
fact, except for those few months
of typing, I would never be asked to do anything in the Army more
constructive
than march around, stand around, sit around, or ride around.
The
Army would reward me for my diligence and commitment by promoting me to
private first class.

What
I really wanted to be doing was
writing stories. I had sold my first one just before entering
the
Army. It would be published in the November 1960 issue of Seventeen.

The
next opportunity I had to write came
during the period in 1961 when I had the use of my detachment's
typewriter
at Camp Red Cloud in Uijongbu. During August, September and
early
October that year, I produced a 20,000 word SF short novel which would
eventually become the last third of Rite of Passage.

Over
the years, there have been a lot
of people who've felt this novel had something to do with Robert
Heinlein.
It's even been called "the best juvenile Heinlein never wrote" by good
ol' Charlie Brown, as though Rite of Passage were a
book that Heinlein
could have written, should have written, or might have written, but
somehow
never got around to writing.

Yet
the book doesn't have the sound of
Heinlein -- it doesn't attempt to imitate his patented narrative
voice.
It doesn't borrow Heinlein's vision, or parrot Heinlein's
ideas.
Nor is it a retelling of any Heinlein story. There's even a
lot of
stuff in it -- like folktales -- that isn't at all Heinlein-like.

So,
how can this story be said to relate
to Robert Heinlein?

Well,
in more than one way, as I'll show
you.

However, the most essential connection
between Rite of Passage and Heinlein, the one on
which all the others
depend, is this:

My
abortive correspondence with Heinlein
in the fall of 1959, together with the previous exchanges that I'd had
with him, had left me with some serious matters to work out.
This
story was my best try at resolving them for myself.

You
might say that the short novel I
wrote at Camp Red Cloud in 1961 was my attempt to take the measure of
Heinlein,
discover my difference from him, and find my own path.